4 Ways To Silence The Voice In Your Head

Humans are 60% water. So we are basically just cucumbers with anxiety.

We all know who it is; that little voice in our head that keeps us up at night, stops us from saying what we really mean and gives us too many alternate opinions when we don’t need them. It’s that little voice called anxiety giving us unnecessary headaches when we don’t need them.

Our anxiety is the result of everything in our day to day life and history, and we all have a different story. Lucky for us then, that this is the one topic that we all collectively share in common. No one is free from that little voice in our heads, for as long as we can talk and think, he will be there to torment us!

As light hearted as I have made it sound, the little voice of anxiety is really a very serious issue that puts us in a dark place and makes us think about bad things when we should be looking forward. How can we silence this demon and get some sleep at night?

1. Occupy your brain

As if life wasn’t difficult enough, try doing some mental calisthenics anyways. Puzzle games, crosswords and even silly mobile phone games are all little things that get our minds circulating off our issues and onto more simple, childish things. There is no shame in getting a few games of Candy Crush (or whatever your favourite mobile vice is) in to get your mind off of things.

2. You need a distraction

For some guys and girls, it takes minutes to get over a partner from a breakup, and others dwell on it for years. To those in the latter, it’s the voice inside the head that is doing the dwelling, and making life an uncomfortable place to be during that time. We dwell on “what if’s” and “why did I’s” all day and night until the voice is just driving us crazy. It leads some to drinking, and some to even worse.

We really don’t need this kind of stress in our life. If you are still so bent up about an old relationship, then you do not have enough distractions in your life. If you were dating someone new, your mind wouldn’t wander so far behind, and it would spend more time wandering to the future, and new possibilities. You need to do whatever you can to interact with someone new. You may not be ready for a new partner, but you will grow into the idea as you pursue new people. Your new person may not be the best replacement either, but at least you are trying. If you can date someone else who recently got out of a relationship, it may be the perfect opportunity to silence two inner voices at once.

3. Who cares if I am or not?

Our inner voice is our deepest critic. It wants us to impress people who don’t really matter to us, and turn little decisions into big deals. How many times have you changed outfits a hundred times before going out, only feeling more and more lost with each change. It magnifies little things and makes us worry too much about the things that don’t matter.

What does matter is our confident spirit and our ability to choose for ourselves. To choose to be comfortable, to choose to be powerful, and formidable. We need to be able to say to ourselves, “who cares?” every now and then to keep our inner voice in check and be able to continue our day fully in control. Enjoy the leisure you get out of saying that to yourself, and being able to live with comfortable aloofness. It feels great! So stop worrying.

4. Find stimulation through active media

The inner monologue in our head is background music to our foreground. White noise in our house is nice to fall asleep to sometimes (all those times you fell asleep in front of the TV?) but the white noise in our head is a curse. Instead of playing victim to it, try to drown it out by enjoying some of your favourite music or audio books. Really actively listen to it, instead of just having it in the background. Focus on the instruments, music, textures, or content, and absorb it. Use it as an opportunity to learn, and sidetrack yourself from what is bothering you. Go to the movies and enter another world for a few hours. Actively enjoying some media is a great medium to tell your inner anxiety to get lost.